Blast kills 9 Iraqi soldiers

[mosfeld]

Blast kills Iraqi soldiers
Nine Iraqi soldiers were killed and six were injured in a roadside bomb attack in northern Iraq.

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2010/9/15/2010915104710642734_20.jpg

Nine Iraqi soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The soldiers were returning home from duty.

The blast left six people wounded, including five soldiers, police and army sources said on Wednesday.

Mosul, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad, and surrounding Nineveh province remain one of the most volatile areas of Iraq, even as violence in the rest of the country waned after peaking in 2006 and 2007 during a brutal sectarian war.

Violence appears to have risen again in recent months, with July and August recording two of the highest monthly deaths since 2008, according to Iraqi figures.

Fighters have launched steady attacks on Iraqi police and troops in recent weeks, while the US military 'formally ended combat operations in August,' seven and a half years after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. US troops have lost 4400 soldiers in a addition to thousands of injured army personnel.

Falluja attacked

In western Iraq, the US military said at least seven people were killed in an overnight raid on a site at the western city of Falluja.

Although the US military participated in the raid, it said the operation, which was launched early Wednesday morning, was Iraqi planned and led.

Wednesday operation is the second combat action the US troops participate in since the US announcement of the end of combat operations in Iraq. US forces engaged earlier this month with fighters in the Iraqi eastern province of Diyala.

A local police commander said one of the dead was a former Iraqi army colonel. A police major said the gun battle lasted four hours. The two police officials asked not to be identified.

At least four other people, including a 90-year-old woman, were wounded in the raid, which took place in the Hay Jubail district of Falluja in western Anbar province, the sources said.

A person whose home is in the neighbourhood said residents opened fire on the troops because they thought they were under attack, and eight people were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

But another neighbour, Juma Yasin, said no one from the neighbourhood fired shots.

"We were sleeping (outside) when suddenly we heard very heavy shooting. We immediately entered our houses and when it was finished we went out and found those people killed," he said. "There was no resistance at all."

Falluja was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting after the 2003 US-led invasion. The vast desert province of Anbar is Iraq's Sunni heartland and was a haven for al-Qaeda. It was also the stronghold of Iraqi resistance fighters following the US-led invasion of Iraq.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010915112616358263.html

[Rakhmetov]

This is the American "success story" Obama has been crowing about lately.

[Ele'ill]

As I had predicted earlier- It's only going to get worse.

[Rakhmetov]

It'll break up into its constituent parts.

[mosfeld]

Military 'had no idea' why we were going to war with Iraq, Colonel Tim Collins tells inquiry
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 12:22 PM on 14th September 2010

Britain's Government and military leaders had 'absolutely no idea' what to do in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, a prominent veteran of the 2003 war said today.

Colonel Tim Collins, who became famous worldwide for his inspirational eve-of-battle address to his men in the Royal Irish Regiment, said the Chilcot Inquiry into the war should recommend action to end a culture of 'obsequiousness' among senior military officers which led to them telling politicians what they wanted to hear.

He was speaking as the inquiry team visited the Army base in Tidworth, Wiltshire, to hear evidence from troops who served on the frontline in Iraq about the conditions they found there.

Asked if he had a clear understanding of the reasons for war as he prepared his troops for the invasion, Col Collins told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'Absolutely not. I don't think anybody had any idea why it was we were going to do this.'

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Former prime minister Tony Blair and U.S. president George Bush had given Saddam Hussein 'an offer he couldn't understand' and even the Iraqi dictator probably did not know what he was required to do to avoid war, said Col Collins.

'I rather thought that there would be some sort of plan and the Government had thought this through and I was clearly wrong,' he said.

'When I gave my now notorious talk to the Royal Irish, I was trying to rationalise for those young men what was going on from my standpoint. As it turned out, it had a wider appeal because nobody had any idea why this was happening.

'It became very apparent to me shortly after crossing the border that the Government and many of my superiors had no idea what they were doing.'

Col Collins said it was left to units like his at a local level to make plans for restoring order to Iraq, which he tried to do by forging links with local people who advised him on how to keep schools, shops and markets open.
'That was all done at a local level by the Irish brigade with no instruction whatsoever coming from above,' he recalled.

'There was no preparation. They had absolutely no idea what to do. We turned up, took away a country's infrastructure and its law and order with absolutely nothing to put in its place.'

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Looting on a 'biblical' scale which took place shortly after the invasion was 'the fault of the coalition for not providing that help', he said.
Asked what result he was hoping for from the Chilcot Inquiry, Col Collins said: 'I think it has to look at the way in which Government controls its armed forces and takes these decisions.

'And it has to look at the higher ranks of the Army and the armed services to weed out incompetence and obsequious behaviour, so people are giving sound advice to Government, not telling them what they want to hear, which is what they were doing.

'Anyone who lost anyone dead in that conflict should feel angry about that.'
Col Collins said the US military appeared better able to learn from mistakes in Iraq than the British.

He was backed on this point by another veteran of the war, author Patrick Hennessey, who told Today: 'Chilcot has no remit to brand Tony Blair a war criminal, which is clearly what some people want, but what it can do is say we need to be better institutionally - the military and everybody - in learning from mistakes.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311889/Iraq-Inquiry-Military-idea-going-war-claims-Col-Tim-Collins.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0zd8x6LiK

[mosfeld]

7 Civilians Killed in U.S. and Iraqi Raid

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BAGHDAD — Seven Iraqi civilians were killed near the western city of Falluja on Wednesday during an early morning raid conducted by American and Iraqi security forces, officials said.
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Four of the dead were brothers between the ages of 10 and 18, according to the Iraqi police and residents of the area.

The United States military in Iraq said in an e-mail on Wednesday afternoon that the Iraqi military had “planned and led” the “joint counterterrorism” operation.

The raid underscored the continuing presence of American service members in security operations, even after the United States declared an official end to combat on Aug. 31.

Among the approximately 50,000 United States troops remaining in Iraq are about 4,500 Special Forces troops who take part in raids with specialized Iraqi security force units. The operations typically pursue those suspected of being leading members of the insurgency or who belong to other armed groups.

It is not clear whether the dead were the targets of the raid or how they were killed. Four other people were wounded during the operation.

The differences between the military and the villagers’ versions about what happened Wednesday morning were stark.

Maj. Rob Phillips, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, said a joint Iraq-American unit had been seeking a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia believed to have been responsible for a number of attacks in Anbar Province. The major said the American forces with the Iraqi military in the village were acting as advisers while the Iraqis served an arrest warrant on the suspected insurgent.

Major Phillips said that as the troops approached the suspect’s house, they came under fire. The troops returned fire, he said, killing four suspected insurgents and wounding three other suspected insurgents. He said two residents of the village who had come out of their homes armed with weapons were also fatally shot by the troops.

The residents are not believed to have had ties to the insurgency, he said. Major Phillips said he did not know whether the Americans fired their weapons or whether the suspected Qaeda leader had been captured, killed or escaped.Officials in Iraq’s Ministry of Defense and in the prime minister’s office did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Iraqi police said that the raid started at about 1 a.m. Wednesday in the village of Hay Jibel, about 40 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar Province.

At least four American helicopters provided support, police officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

In addition to the four brothers who were killed, police officials said that a man who had been a colonel in the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein had also died. The police officials said they believe the man, whose identity has not been released, may have been the original target of the raid.

Residents of Hay Jibel described a chaotic scene in which security force members moved through the neighborhood in the darkness, firing at people who represented no threat.

“I was sleeping when I was awakened by gunfire and explosions,” said a resident who identified himself only by his first name, Muhammad, because he feared reprisal if Iraqi security force members knew who he was. “I went out to see what was happening and they shot at me. They missed, but I went back inside and stayed there.”

Abdul Satar, 30, said he was sleeping inside his house with his wife and two children when he also heard noises.

“I opened the door and there were flashlights shining on me,” he said. “They were Iraqi and American soldiers with a dog. They released the dog and it bit me on my left leg and right hand. They forced me to take off all my clothes and then made my children take their clothes off as well.” Mr. Satar said the soldiers allowed his wife to stay dressed, but ordered the family to remain outdoors until the operation concluded.

Iraqi police, who said they had been barred from taking part in the raid, said the joint security force members took four of the seven bodies before they departed at about 7 a.m.

Qasim Mohammed Abed, the governor of Anbar Province, said he had been angered by how the raid was conducted and blamed both the American and Iraqi militaries for the deaths.

“We did not know about this operation — they only informed us that there was going to be a small raid in which they would arrest someone,” he said. “We did not expect this to happen.”

Mr. Abed said he had been told by witnesses that the deaths were unjustified.

“The security forces behaved without morals,” the governor said. “They say that people there resisted them, but it is not true. No one resisted them. They just came to bring trouble to this province.”

Near the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday, nine Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven other people were wounded after the minibus carrying them struck a roadside bomb, the Iraqi police said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[mosfeld]

From 0% to 20% illiteracy — an Iraqi feat

By DAVID E. MILLER | THE MEDIA LINE
Published: Sep 16, 2010 23:22 Updated: Sep 16, 2010 23:22

BAGHDAD: One in five Iraqis aged 10 to 49 cannot read or write, with large discrepancies in literacy levels between men and women, a report by United Nations has found.

The report, released by the UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit, found that illiteracy among women in Iraq (24 percent) is more than double that of men (11 percent) while inhabitants of rural areas are much more likely to be illiterate (25 percent) than those in urban areas (14 percent).

The areas worst affected by illiteracy are the Kurdish provinces of Dahuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya in Iraq's north, and the predominantly Shiite provinces of Wassit, Qadissiya and Muthanna in the south.

"In general, Iraq is one of the better countries in the region in terms of literacy," Nour Dajani, an education program specialist in Iraq for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), told The Media Line. "In the 1980's Iraq was recognized by UNESCO as achieving zero illiteracy. It was one of the few countries in the world to do so."

Dajani said that the UN financial sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 have had a disastrous effect on Iraq's educational system. "Under the embargo they were not allowed to buy anything, including books and pencils," she said.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the prolonged state of war that ensued compounded the country's education crisis.

"Security affected literacy," Dajani added. "Parents were scared to send their girls to schools and many schools were destroyed during the war. The Iraqi government now says that 4,000 new schools are needed."

Dajani cited significant school dropout levels and pupils' internal displacement as a result of the war as the principal reasons for illiteracy in Iraq. According to Iraq's National Bureau of Statistics, 55 percent of Iraqis aged 6 to 24 do not attend schools.

"Many drop out after fifth grade, when classes become more difficult," Dajani said. "They also drop out for economic reasons."

The UN report found that illiteracy impacts civilian attitudes regarding participation in social and political life. Illiterate youth in Iraq felt their voices were less heard in the country's institutions.

UNESCO hopes to reduce illiteracy in Iraq by 50 percent before the year 2015. Several programs run by UNESCO in Iraq aim to reintegrate school dropouts in formal educational systems, as well as create parallel informal educational frameworks where literacy classes take place alongside vocational training.

A large-scale media campaign initiated by Iraq's Ministry of Education is also planned to counter school dropout and inform Iraqis of the need for education.

Ali Al-Saffar, an expert on Iraq at the Economist Intelligence Unit said that the Iraqi illiteracy map clearly reflected political decisions made during the Saddam era. "The areas more loyal to Saddam such as Diyala, Salah Al-Din and Anbar have much better literacy rates," he told The Media Line. "The investment in education was simply higher in areas loyal to him."

Al-Saffar added that the high illiteracy rate reflected ongoing underinvestment in education in Iraq. "This is a legacy that has lasted for years."

The United Nations defines literacy as the ability to read and write a simple statement related to daily life, as well as basic numeric skills.

http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article140251.ece

[mosfeld]

Many killed in Baghdad blasts
Attacks near the national security ministry office and a restaurant in the Iraqi capital leave at least 29 people dead.

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At least 29 people have been killed in two near-simultaneous car bomb explosions in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

In one of Sunday's incidents, a bomb went off in the busy Adan juncture in the northwestern Kadhimiya district as people were heading to work. Nineteen people were killed in the blast, near an office of the national security ministry.

Security forces said another car bomb in the western Mansour district killed 10 people outside the Zarzour kebab restaurant and the office of the phone company Asiacell.

An official said the victims of both blasts were brought to the same hospital and the chaotic situation made it difficult to give more details about the casualties in each of the blasts.

About 100 people were wounded in the two explosions.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Baghdad, said officials believed civilians were targets of both attacks.

Green Zone attack

Also on Sunday, a father and son were killed when a magnetic bomb was attached to their car in Ghazaliyah in western Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.

The official said three mortar rounds had also been fired into the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to many foreign embassies and government buildings, without causing any casualties or damage.

According to government figures, the highest death tolls across Iraq since 2008 have been reported in the past two months.

Our correspondent said: "This comes as US forces have drawn down their presence to under 50,000 soldiers on the ground and as Iraqi politicians remain unable to form a governing coalition, six months after the inconclusive March 7 elections.

"Those who intend to destabilise the country are stepping up their attacks during this period of uncertainty."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201091982110761498.html